NBA Insider with Ken Berger

If it is any consolation to David Stern, his news conference Tuesday didn’t spend much time on the front burner.

By the time I got stuck in traffic on the LIE, less than two hours after Stern finished speaking, the breathlessly anticipated media event already had been bumped out of the leadoff spot in sports talk radio updates by another circus act – a news conference scheduled for later in the day by Falcons owner Arthur Blank to discuss horrific dog-fighting charges against NFL quarterback Michael Vick.

The shelf life of sports scandals isn’t what it used to be.

A lot of our readers post comments on Newsday stories online. Stern should take solace from the fact that when I checked at one point Tuesday afternoon, there were five comments on my breaking story about Stern and 298 comments on our story about Lindsay Lohan getting arrested again.

If LiLo were a referee, maybe more people would’ve watched the NBA Finals.

This isolated, unscientific poll of reader interest could be good or bad for the NBA. On one hand, sports fans and the public in general get bored with scandalous news a lot faster than ever before. But if the lack of online chatter about the NBA referee scandal Tuesday was any indication, Stern’s league may brushing up against an enemy even worse than Donaghy.

Apathy.

When interest wanes, there are no more customers. When there are no more customers, there is no more sport.

So what happens next? Donaghy now isn’t expected to surrender until sometime next week, so the scandal probably will die down for a few days. If and when Donaghy or his attorney speaks publicly, there will be more stories, more speculation, and more facts about what actually happened here and how widespread it was.

By that time, Lohan might have gotten arrested again or Britney Spears might have been caught engaging in some new form of bizarre behavior. In the court of public interest, rampaging starlets beat white-collar criminals 99 times out of 100 – although there is no official Vegas line on that. But maybe there should be one on how many days its takes the sporting public to completely forget that Tim Donaghy ever existed.

Whether that is good or bad for Stern and his league is even money at the moment.

The most interesting aspect of David Stern’s news conference was also the most scary.

While Stern made it clear that based on information he received from federal investigators and is permitted to discuss, the FBI gambling probe is focused on only one referee, Tim Donaghy.

But he left the door open to a far more damaging possibility – that other refs could be implicated.

Stern called Donaghy a “rogue, isolated criminal,” but added, “Let me make it clear that’s my current understanding.” When pressed on the matter later in his hour-long briefing, Stern said, “If that understanding changes tomorrow, I will so inform everybody.”

Translation: Federal investigators have told Stern essentially what they’ve told our reporters working the case. That Donaghy, 40, a 13-year NBA veteran, is the only official currently believed to have gambled on games and provided information to gamblers.

But federal authorities led by Eastern District prosecutors in Brooklyn are examining all possibilities, including the idea that Donaghy could bring more people down with him. No one will know until the investigation is concluded, which is why Stern – obviously shaken and lacking his typical combativeness in the face of scandal – was unwilling to say just yet that his battered league will be able to avoid a wide-ranging scandal.

“This proves that I can’t be sure of anything,” Stern said.

You can read my first story on the Stern news conference here, but a few other things stood out during the somber briefing in the inappropriately named for the occasion “majestic ballroom” of the Westin hotel at 43rd and 8th this morning:

· Warren Levinson of The Associated Press asked perhaps the best question. I’m paraphrasing here, but Levinson essentially asked Stern: “Donaghy hasn’t been convicted or even charged, so what evidence do you have that he bet on games?” Stern thought for a few seconds and said that Donaghy’s attorney, John Lauro, informed him that the ref is contemplating a plea in the case.

· Chris Sheridan of ESPN.com stopped Stern in his tracks when he asked him if the Nevada Gaming Commission had ever alerted him to any possible betting improprieties with respect to NBA games. Stern tried to avoid the question, but eventually said quite vaguely that the behavior of a timing official had been questioned “20 years ago” in a game that had been taken off the betting line. He didn’t give any specifics.

· Chris Broussard of ESPN The Magazine forced Stern to be more specific about Donaghy’s alleged activities, at which point Stern removed any qualifiers and stated as follows: “It is my understanding that amongst the allegations are that he bet on games which he officiated and possibly which he did not officiate, and that he gave information to others for the purpose of allowing them to place bets on games that he was officiating and games that he was not officiating.”

· A Wall Street Journal reporter whose name escapes me asked Stern if he’d consider raising the referees’ salaries so as to reduce their chances of getting involved in illegal money-making activities. Stern then revealed that Donaghy’s salary last season was $260,000.

· I thought I asked one of the most important questions (if I do say so myself). Stern had made it clear that his current understanding is that the allegations are limited to one referee. I asked him if he’s just as confident that no player, team, or league official is under investigation or suspicion. He said, “I know of no such suspicion.”

· I had another question but didn’t get called on to ask it. Stern made a point of saying that the NBA has consultants in Las Vegas, where sports betting is legal, who report any funny business going on with betting on NBA games. Such funny business could include large amounts of money coming in on a particular team for a particular game. But does the NBA also monitor the illegal sports betting world in the same way? It should, because the gambling that Donaghy is alleged to have been linked with – like most sports betting in the country – was illegal gambling not located in Nevada.

I love newspapers.

Newspapers are one place of employment where you could lock yourself in your home office for, oh, four hours straight, squinting as you pore over columns upon columns of data that you have gone to great lengths to obtain – only to have it cut out of the article you wrote because it didn’t fit in the little white space assigned to it.

So before I drop off my son at summer camp Tuesday morning – my son who turned 3 Monday and whose party was occurring while I was holed up in a local Starbucks writing about impending federal indictments and John Doe warrants – here is the information that you would’ve gotten if the space in the newspaper were unlimited, as it is on the Web site you are now reading.

During the 2006-07 season, Tim Donaghy reffed eight games in which at least 72 free throws were attempted – or 20 more than the league average. Of those eight games, six had final scores exceeding the “over/under” by an average of 26.8 points.

This seems significant to me. According to sports betting sources, calling fouls would be the easiest way for an NBA official to influence the number of points scored in relation to the over/under. In addition to wagering on the point spread, or margin of victory, some bettors put money on whether the total number of points scored will be greater or less than the over/under set by bookmakers.

According to Covers.com, a sports wagering Web site that tracks referees’ tendencies, Donaghy officiated the fourth-highest scoring games in the NBA last season with a 201.2 average. In addition, 43 of the 73 games he officiated hit the over, the third-highest percentage in the league.

People familiar with the Donaghy probe have been telling us that they are not really focused on particular games and the statistical anomalies that may seem to have occurred. They are building their case through old-fashioned law enforcement techniques – like evidence gathered through wiretaps and apparent admissions by Donaghy, who is cooperating with investigators.

But certain facts about games officiated by Donaghy don’t seem right. That’s not good enough for a federal indictment, but it’s good enough to make the average fan say, “Hmmmm.”

I’ll check in again after David Stern’s news conference today at the “majestic ballroom” of a Manhattan hotel. What an appropriate venue!

Like everyone else, I would love some answers.

I would love to hear from Commissioner Stern about this little gambling/point-shaving scandal, a thorough embarrassment that has shaken the NBA.

I’d like to take a break from poring over every game Tim Donaghy refereed in the past two years to see if anything strange happened. Chances are, it did, because something strange happens in almost every NBA game – a missed call, a Rasheed Wallace meltdown, some give-and-take between superstar and official. It is part of what makes covering the NBA so entertaining, particularly in the not-so-distant past, when reporters got a courtside seat at every arena.

Whatever happened with Donaghy happened right under the noses of reporters who, even now, have the best seat among any professional sports writers. It also happened without misplacing a single hair on a single head of a single bookmaker or oddsmaker in Las Vegas, which is hard to believe.

That is why the gambling sources I have – suddenly, I have gambling sources – are warning me to be careful not to leap to conclusions. A lot of conclusions are being leapt to, such as civilization is about to be brought to its knees by a single crooked referee, but let’s be patient. The feds will let us know what they know soon enough, and then we’ll know how serious the damage is.

There is speculation about Donaghy blowing the whistle on players, team officials, and other referees. Funny, no one involved in the investigation has mentioned anything of the sort to our news-side reporter who is occasionally pitching in to help me with this story. And his information from law enforcement sources has been ironclad so far. So on that count, too, let’s wait and see.

If this scandal goes beyond Donaghy, it could bring total devastation to the NBA’s credibility. But if this is just one troubled, misguided ref, as my esteemed Tribune Co. colleague, Sam Smith, writes, we will have to turn the hysteria down a notch.

Everything is always hysterical when it comes to the NBA. Carmelo Anthony punched someone? Heavens, no! Ban him for life! Never mind that Barry Bonds is suspected of being juiced up and Michael Vick stands accused of something as disgraceful as electrocuting dogs. If those two clowns were in the NBA, the league would have folded last week.

I am told we won’t be hearing from the Commissioner today, which means that the NBA has to endure another day of every enterprising reporter in the country and beyond digging beneath every rock imaginable in search of the bottom of this story. But we won’t hit bottom until we hear the evidence the feds have in its entirety. Then, and only then, will we know how far the NBA will have to climb up to regain its credibility.

Now, excuse me while I return to researching whether Amare Stoudemire picked up two quick fouls in the second quarter of a Donaghy-officiated game that nobody remembers.

Steve Francis, whose trade to Portland in the Zach Randolph deal got him a $30 million buyout from the Blazers, has signed a two-year deal with the Houston Rockets.

Francis has kept a home in Houston since he joined the Rockets in 1999 and had his best years in the league there. The deal is worth about $6 million, meaning that Francis will wind up about $2 million ahead after having $30 million of the $34 million left on his contract bought out by Portland.

The Rockets have scheduled a news conference for tomorrow to announce the signing. More details to come later.

A little news was lost in all the excitement over Stephon Marbury’s strange proclamation that he wants to play in Italy when his contract us up in two years.

In a blog he is writing this week for the Post – frankly, an uncomfortable forum for an athlete to express his opinions and break news – Marbury wrote today that he would embrace the idea of Ron Artest playing for the Knicks.

“I’ll keep it real and let y’all know I wouldn’t mind playing with Ron Artest,” Marbury wrote. “I think he would be a good fit here in New York. He’s built for it.”

I’ll let Neil Best weigh in on the issue of a newspaper publishing a blog from a prominent athlete it is supposed to be covering objectively. But I have to admit, I’m far more intrigued by Marbury’s endorsement of acquiring Artest than his thoughts on where he plans to retire.

So, apparently, is “islesfan,” who comments on the blog: “Since money isn’t everything, how about you ask the Knicks to let you out of the last 2 years of your contract and you can leave for Italy tomorrow?”

The Italy stuff, I can’t figure out. I can’t figure it out any more than I could figure out Marbury’s strange appearance on “Mike’d Up” recently. The dude has a lot of good in him, a lot of good intentions in his heart. He also obviously has a lot of stuff rattling around in his brain.

Not as much as Alan Hahn does, though. The poor guy can't even go on vacation without his starting point guard popping off on a competing newspaper's web site. How many "welcome to the Knicks beat" moments can one guy stand?

No reaction yet from Ron Artest to our story and two Web specials on Tuesday. Perhaps he is running for his life from a herd of hippopatamuses. (Herd? Flock? School? Help me out.)

Seriously, a lot of you have posted your comments on the story, Artest's personal account of his Africa trip, and the previous blog entry. Keep 'em coming. In the meantime, I wanted to link to a few other sites that are cranking out Artest chatter.

First, most Kings fans posting here seem numb to Artest and want to see him traded.

This Kings fan blog is pointing out that the most interesting comment he made from a Sac-Town perspective was his line about whether he thinks his teammates on the Kings believe they are championship contenders.

At FanNation, they're dishing about whether Artest should be traded to the Knicks or somewhere else.

Most of these Knick fans seem willing to give Artest the benefit of the doubt, while these guys can't believe David Lee actually plays streetball in the projects.

At RealGM, Knick fans are trying to read between the lines in Artest's interview and also debating how good the Knicks would be if they got him.

If you come across any sites with some good Artest talk or have any thoughts about anything he said, the floor is yours.

By Ken Berger

The connection on his iPhone from Kenya wasn't great, but Ron Artest was so talkative when we spoke Sunday night that we need to test Newsday.com's bandwidth to get it all to you.

Tuesday's newspaper story is a little bit of everything - the news about his suspension, his thoughts about possibly getting traded, his impressions of the Knicks, Zach Randolph, David Lee, and Isiah Thomas, the sense of loyalty he feels toward the Sacramento Kings, and some of the highlights of his trip to Africa with the NBA Players Association to feed 1 million impoverished people.

There's also Artest's personal account of his trip on Newsday.com, and some photos he emailed.

Now, since I've been pushing for the Knicks to try to trade for Artest, it makes sense to me that you'd want to know everything else the Queensbridge native and former St. John's star said that was basketball related. Thanks to technology, here are his comments on a variety of topics I thought you would find interesting:

• His seven-game suspension for pleading no-contest to a domestic violence charge: "I want to apologize to my family for putting myself in the situation to get suspended. I want to apologize to the NBA, the Sacramento Kings, the whole New York City for supporting me so much, and for being in the paper for something negative. I definitely want to apologize to my supporters, too, because I'm not trying to be in the public for anything negative. That's not what I'm trying to do anymore, but unfortunately things happen."

• His public image: "I want kids to really see the goodness in me, not just the bad. There's been enough bad. So I want people to really respect that, and when they do write things, just keep that in mind. I'm not perfect. I might say things and do things, but at the same time, I'm not trying to be some bad dude."

• Whether he could handle playing in New York, where he grew up and starred for St. John's: "I go home a lot. I've never been in any violent trouble, ever. My family basically did everything in the projects that you could do, and I've never adjusted to that negative lifestyle. People see me in New York and I'll be in ghettos, the projects, doing good things for the kids. And you've never seen me getting caught smoking marijuana, DUI, any gun charges. I'm totally capable of playing in any major city - L.A., Miami, Houston, New York City - and at the same time I'm happy to be a Sacramento King. But I'm totally capable of handling anything that comes my way as far as the pressures. I'm not afraid of big media markets. That's why I stayed home at St. John's, because I wasn't afraid of the big media market."

• Whether he still wants to be a Knick, the team he wanted to draft him out of St. John's: "It's not something that really comes across my mind right now at this point. … All the people in New York give me a confidence that no one else could give me because of all the negativity that's been publicized. It's not even the sponsors or the corporate, it's the people that want me to come back."

• His place among the top players in the league: "Every time we play against Kobe, they're putting me on him. When I'm on the offensive end, they put their best defender on me. They're going to put the Kobes on me. Sometimes LeBron will guard me; he's one of the few guys. I'll guard Rip Hamilton, but he won't guard me. So from that point, I'm on the level of any one of the top players in the league."

• His loyalty to the Kings: "The Maloofs, Mama [Colleen] Maloof, she's been a beautiful lady, a beautiful friend to me. All the Maloofs have been good people to me. So that's what the people of New York City don't really see. They only see a player. They see an opportunity for a trade. But it's important that I tell them more so they really see what has to go into all of this."

• His relationship with Kings G.M. Geoff Petrie: "When I talked to Geoff, I talked to him as a friend because he's been a friend to me. But I understand that if Michael Jordan could be run out of Chicago, Ron Artest could be traded from Sacramento. … I understand I could be traded, so it won't make me upset if I'm traded. I won't be mad at Geoff. He'll always be a good friend."

• What would make him demand a trade: "When you're a competitor and you've got to play against a team, you don't think about going to that team. I want to play against San Antonio. I don't want to join forces with them. I want to play against all these teams with the team I've got and I want to win a championship. And that's how I feel. My only thing is, I want people to feel like that around me. If people don't feel like that around me, that we're going to go into this game and win a championship, that's the only thing that makes me upset. That's the only thing that can make me not want to be with a team.

• Whether his teammates in Sacramento believe they are championship contenders: "Well, you know, training camp hasn't even started yet. So you'll pick everybody's brain when you get started. That's a question that I asked last year, and everybody wasn't on board and ready to go try to win this championship, and I was pretty upset about that - that everybody was not like, 'We're actually going to win a championship.' That's how I need to feel. But this is a new season and hopefully people will feel that way."

• What kind of coach he wants to play for: "Being the franchise player is being one of the top players, and I try to give feedback. And if people aren't on board, you just tell your coach, 'Hey, we've got people not on board. I don't think people believe that we can win a championship.' At that point, I think it's up to the coach to instill that in the players. That's something that Isiah is very capable of doing. I think Reggie Theus did it back in college. It's something that would get me frustrated, but it's something that could be challenging. And that's my challenge. And that's a challenge that I'm not afraid to step up to."

• Playing for a team that already has a franchise player: "That's sort of the way it was in Indiana with me and Jermaine [O'Neal]. I didn't have to carry the whole load. We had Jermaine and Steve Jackson and everybody pretty much carried the load. We had Reggie Miller to hit the big threes, and I could pretty much wander around and do my thing off the ball. And it worked for me, too. I had my best season under a situation like that."

• Isiah Thomas: "Isiah's my family. I had my best team season under Rick Carlisle. But after Isiah left, I was pretty upset about that. I wanted to play for Isiah because he brought me in there. I had great times under Rick Carlisle, but I spoke to Isiah after he left Indiana and we talk quite often about things, about non-basketball things. I have a really good relationship with Isiah. I don't have any problems. On the court, Isiah's a monster when he's coaching. He's really intense and he got on my ass quite a few times, but I respect that. I don't mind somebody pushing me to make me better. I don't mind that at all."
  

Big story out on Friday that the Knicks received a luxury tax bill from the NBA in the amount of $45.1 million.

What a shock!

It means, of course, that the Knicks were exactly $45,142,002 over the salary cap in 2006-07 for a team that won 33 games. But let’s not treat this as news. It’s not like it’s a big secret that the Knicks are tens of millions over the cap. I predict they will remain tens of millions over the cap until my soon-to-be 3-year-old son replaces Neil Best as Newsday.com’s mobile-web-only sports media watchdog columnist and 24-hour-a-day blogger.

Seriously, Neil has lost his mind. We used to work together on the football beat, and he swore he would never do a stitch of online work if he didn’t get paid extra for it. He also once famously said that the Internet is only a fad. Well, several years later he is getting up in the middle of the night to write blog entries and getting paid diddly squat for it. He is a multimedia, multiplatform machine. And he seems happy.

Neil was a meticulous, obsessive beat writer covering the Giants at a time when the news cycle offered him only one deadline per day. Now, it appears that his life is one, long deadline. His blog is informative, up-to-date, funny, personal, interactive – all the things a blog should be. Check it out here.

But I digress. Nobody remembers – nor will they ever remember – that I was the first Newsday sports beat writer to start a blog back when I was covering the Jets. People talk about Newsday’s glory days of Steve Jacobson, Peter King, Stan Isaacs, Tim Layden, Pat Calabria, et al. Phooey on all those dinosaurs. When the final assessment of the newspaper industry is complete, let it be known that I dragged the newspaper I grew up with into the interactive age of sports coverage.

Boy, do I digress. My point about the Knicks is this: While some find it interesting that only five teams are paying luxury tax, and that the one closest to what the Knicks owe is Dallas at $7.2 million, it’s not really that interesting to me. This is how the Knicks do business: They overpay and overpay and spend Cablevision’s money on a team that has been mediocre at best for years.

Now they have made a sound basketball trade for Zach Randolph, and if they add once more piece, they could be one of the top five or six teams in the East next season. Will anyone be poking fun at their luxury tax bill then? I suppose Cablevision customers and/or shareholders would quibble, but nobody else would.

Come to think of it, this would make an interesting blog topic for Neil.

So Geoff Petrie says he's never heard of Isiah Thomas, much less held trade talks with him about Ron Artest.

Artest says he's never heard of the Knicks or Madison Square Garden, much less asked to be traded there.

I exaggerate, of course, but only to illustrate my point. Don't believe everything you read about the possibility of Artest being traded this summer being dead.

Consider it shelved for a while, but not dead. There are too many factors in favor of the Kings parting with their tempestuous small forward to ignore. The stuff going on in public between Thomas and Petrie? Maybe it really does foreshadow that things won't work out between the Knicks and the Kings. But until I see Artest suit up for the Kings in training camp, I'll consider it little more than posturing by two poker-playing general managers.

Thomas was trying to lowball Artest's market value by allowing it to be leaked that he won't trade David Lee. Petrie responded by essentially stomping his feet and saying, "Oh, yeah? Well I haven't even talked to anyone about trading Ron-Ron and I'm not trading him. So there."

Ron-Ron chimed in yesterday in a poolside interview in Vegas with what Filip Bondy likes to call the "evil Post," saying that he wants to retire as a King. When? Next week, so he can focus on his rap career?

Give the Artest cloud a few weeks to blow over. When the posturing and gamesmanship are over, it'll blow back. If nothing else, the likelihood of Artest being traded will increase dramatically as we approach the February trade deadline. Why? By then, Artest will be able to play the opt-out card that he's claiming now he won't play. Remember: Artest is nothing if not unpredictable. If he decides after a few months that things aren't as rosy in Sacramento as he thinks they are today, he could easily force his way out by threatening to opt out after next season.

Which brings us back to Petrie's statements about not wanting to trade Artest this summer. Being the shrewd G.M. he is, Petrie must realize that he'll get more for Artest now than he'd get in a potential fire sale at the deadline. The Knicks and Heat realize that, too, and will be willing to wait Petrie out. The longer it goes, the lower the price.

Some other things you need to know:
* Chris Webber apparently only wants to play for the Mavericks or Pistons
* Derek Fisher is expected to sign with the Lakers
* The Clippers have emerged as the most likely destination for Steve Francis once he's bought out by the Trail Blazers.
* A Blazers fan site called www.blazersedge.com is touting Channing Frye as a potential quote machine. Nice guy, Channing is, but keep dreaming. Frye generated the comment with the following quote about what he'll bring to Portland: "I bring everything...a little personality, a little leadership, a little shooting, a little defense. I'm a buffet of goodness." Channing's assessment of his own game was pretty accurate. He brings a little of everything, the operative word being "little."

UPDATE: Francis' buyout was completed today, and he's hitting waivers at 12:01 a.m. In seven days he'll be a free agent, and he got more than $30 million of the $33.6 million he was owed. Not bad. So the Knicks' trade for Zach Randolph looks even better from their perspective (they traded only Channing Frye for him), and from Francis' point of view. The Heat, Clippers and Mavericks are the leading destinations for Francis, with the Lakers and Bucks also interested.

It appears the Knicks are going to have to look elsewhere for help at small forward with reports Tuesday morning that Rashard Lewis has decided to sign a five-year max deal with the Orlando Magic.

Details are sketchy, but ESPN.com is reporting that Lewis was wowed by the Magic’s aggressive recruiting visit and decided to opt for a straight-up contract rather than going to another team via a sign-and-trade. Orlando was one of the few teams with enough cap space to give Lewis a max deal. The total value won’t be known until the 2007-08 salary cap structure is announced, and it won’t be official until the signing moratorium is lifted on July 11.

The Sonics could have given Lewis a more lucrative six-year deal, then dealt him to a team such as the Knicks. We’ll find out later today whether the Knicks lacked the pieces to get such a deal done or Lewis simply wanted to play alongside Dwight Howard in Orlando.

Isiah Thomas will now have to go to Plan B if he wants to add a small forward who can score, defend, and rebound. Ron Artest could be had for a modest price in a trade with Sacramento. The Kings are tired of his distractions, and Artest would be cheap because he’d essentially be a one-year rental with an opt-out in 2009. Toronto’s Morris Peterson also is an unrestricted free agent.

On another note, I’m going to steal a tactic from my colleague, Alan Hahn, by going musical in my blog. I saw Rush for about the 15th time last night at Jones Beach, and for those who care, it was the best show I’ve seen them do. Rush is an eclectic musical taste, and my taste for their music is probably more eclectic than most. I like a lot of their obscure songs that never got played on the radio, and they rolled out a playlist of my favorites last night, as though I had submitted requests.

Then again, maybe Zach Randolph is a Rush fan, too. They played “Mission,” something Zach is going to be on to repair his public image, and “Circumstances,” which were all that kept him from being a model citizen in Portland. They opened with “Limelight,” which Zach certainly will find in New York, and sprinkled in a rare live performance of “Witch Hunt.” Insert your own joke.